I Promise
by Lightning-Dono
Summary: [OneShot] He never forgot that he had torn them apart, but in the end, he wanted to mend it all. [IzumiMeroko]


**Lightning-Dono**: I'm in a one-shot mood…I know very well the ending of the manga, but this takes place VERY much later on.

**I Promise**

**By**: Lightning-Dono

**Status**: One-Shot

**Couple**: Izumi x Meroko

--

The iridescent moonlight cascaded down his side, highlighting his silky yellow hair and adding life to his eyes. Gone was the guilt he had held upon his chest for years before, regretting his suicide and disguising his fears with tones of love and ambition. Now, he had done his good deed. He had pleased his master as his master had never been pleased before and earned his way into the heavenly ranks of angels that watched over every living being in the land. But before he appeared before the Shinigami leader, he wanted to see his one and only passion again.

Just once. To see her brilliant strawberry eyes observe him carefully, to hold onto her fragile form once more and to feel her tears drop silently onto his sleeve, dampening it and staining it with sadness. He wanted to be able to feel more than he ever had before, knowing that it would be long before Meroko would ever get to where he was. She was the bane of his existence, and yet it because she was there he felt the need to continue on.

She floated down before them with a weak flap of her angelic, miniature wings, tears brimming at her eyelids.

"How could you do that?" Meroko whispered, her voice floating in heavenly waves towards Izumi's ears.

"Do what, Me-chan?" He tilted his head slightly to welcome in her sad expression. His golden eyes reflected the moon's soft light.

"Take Mitsuki's life! She was only twenty-five!" The young woman before him cried out with such a sense of incredulity in her voice that Izumi was forced to choke back a laugh.

His soft lips curved up into a passionate, yet almost cruel smile. The hybrid was oddly disturbing, but Meroko held her gaze steadily, unwavering as she approached him more until she was inches away from his face. Izumi highly favored her presence, but the fact that she was so close seemed to rejuvenate him strangely.

"And to let her lie dying inside an ambulance, healing and living the rest of her life crippled and knowing that the person who had caused it was none other than her dear, beloved Takuto? I don't think so. Me-chan," at this, he took his hand and brushed the side of her face, the locks of hair framing her face tickling his fingers. "You know I wouldn't allow that. So much cruelty is let to happen in the world these days. I'm merely doing justice to a young woman who would have been unhappy otherwise."

Meroko drew back, using her gloved hand to pull away his, apparently revolted by this response that seemed so careless towards the young girl in mention.

"She's fought through cancer," she said firmly, with a sense of finality as though this statement solved everything. "She could have lived through that." Then, as suddenly as the waves that had just crashed into the bay they sat above, tears flooded into her large eyes. "Takuto would have made her happy! She _never_ would have continued to live in bitterness because he had been driving the car when the accident happened! You just ruined Takuto's life by doing this!"

"But why would you care?" Izumi intoned, his eyes taunting her to continue on her emotional rave. "He rejected you so many times, and you found such contentedness being in _my_ arms. Why do you find such pleasure wallowing in his business when he does not grant you another thought?"

At this, Meroko could not answer. For a man who had been so woefully immature at points in terms of romance, he finally spoke wisdom.

"Because," she started, choosing her words carefully lest she let slip a word that would have angered the man before her. "I feel have an attachment to him."

Izumi snickered impassively. "Is it because you have an attachment to all of your past loves, even if they have moved on? Take Mi-ki's grandfather, for example. It killed you to love him, yet to this day you can't help but seek revenge against the younger of his bloodline, could you? And now Ta-kun…Me-chan, you're just hurting yourself by feeling for these people. They have nothing to do with you anymore."

"There's where you're wrong, Izumi," Meroko spoke, allowing her tears to fall free from their previous imprisonment, balancing on her eyelashes. "I feel for every person I've loved. That's the meaning of love, feeling the other person's presence as though it were your very own. You've never been able to understand that," she paused to hastily swipe the tears that had been becoming bothersome, "and that's where you fall short!"

The dog-eared, soon-to-be angel grasped her waist in his strong hands and hugged her. "I can fall short anywhere I want, but I want you to promise me something."

Meroko paused for a moment, wondering what other devious things Izumi could concoct in his mind.

"I want you to promise me that you'll love me even when I'm gone."

Meroko was momentarily shocked by the emotion he had poured into his voice, and for once, it was pure. He wasn't trying to shield his lust for love by sounding desperate – he truly felt it. She didn't give her answer a second thought. All her life, she had yearned to be loved, and even in death, that quest did not cease to exist. Everyday she wondered whose heart she would have to pry at for them to open it to her, and now that she was getting such a chance, she couldn't give it up.

And what made the offer even more tantalizing was that she loved him, too. Despite the fact that he had rid of her first, he still clung to her like glue later. Even though she continuously reported back to him about Takuto's well-being, he never cracked and grew angry. His cool demeanor never faded and even thrust forth into a position where he had to listen to someone he loved speak ravenously about another man, he stayed.

"I promise." She felt him tense, and she placed her arms around his neck and squeezed him tightly. "I promise." It triggered such a heartfelt sensation, made bitter by the fact that he was leaving her soon, that the tears that had stopped flowing for a moment began to stream again. _Why does he have to leave now?_ She wondered, sniffling. _Why did we have to wait so long to be this way?_

"Don't promise me because I want you to," he forced out, his voice strangled by what he was feeling. He couldn't let her go now, yet he could feel the omnipotent tug of the Shinigami leader, beckoning him to be granted eternal peace. _Let me have a moment more with her_, he pleaded. _Let me feel this once more before I go_. "Promise me because you feel the same." And, despite the fact that he clutched her with all his strength, a black mist formed from behind him, wrapped securely around his wings, and pulled. The pain of something being pulled from him that was a part of his being yanked him from her as he fought back through howls of pain.

Meroko feared for Izumi, so thus to end his pain, she let him go as soon as he removed his arms from around her.

Comforted by the sudden end to pain, he looked back at her with a serene smile, searching for her answer. He only had to look into the eyes that he loved so much to know.

_I promise._


End file.
